Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

comics, continued...

Group

Where

Year

Source

Quote/Notes

comics

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 152.

"Amos thought back to his boyhood for a moment, when he would pay twelve cents for a comic book at a magazine and sweet shop near the Capitol Building. The place had long since become an adult bookstore, but the locale still had a sentimental meaning for him. Once a month he would buy Green Lantern and The Incredible Hulk, and either a Dr. Pepper or an Oh Henry! bar. And he would sit on the bench outside the store, lost in the gaudy four-color adventures.

What fascinated him most about the comic books were the ads they ran, for strange and mysterious objects that would give you powers almost equaling those of the superheroes you were reading about.

There was one in particular that had caught his attention. The hypno-coin. Carry it in your pocket, the ad had said. Keep it handy. A million laughs for all occasions. "

comics

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 165.

"He roared past the White House, screaming and laughing hysterically, and hoping that his racket would wake the President of the U.S.A. himself.

'Look at me!' Ghost screamed out the window. 'I'm Superman!'

Superman.

The word burned in his mind.

He was there, all right. He was practically Superman. As long as he had that rock, which was like some hypnotic version of Aladdin's magic lamp. Only my wish is your command.

...He banged his fist on the steering wheel. How could I have been so stupid? I sold the clothes!

He had to have them. If they were anything like the rock, then they would have been brilliant. Who knew what kind of superpowers they would give him. Maybe they could make him bulletproof. Then he really would be Superman.

Maybe they could even make him fly.

...Tomorrow. it would be good-bye Clark Kent. "

comics

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 197.

"'...and the Sunday Post. Have you seen it?'

'Yeah,' Kiernan said. 'And I still think Hobbes is too wise to be a figment of Calvin's imagination.'

'Wrong section,' said Wrampe. "

comics

Washington, D.C.

1999

Anderson, Jack. Millennium. New York: Tor (1994); pg. 202.

"Yes, he had power now, but there was a nightmare side to it, and with it a moral as clear and preachy as the lessons in those old superhero comic books. There's something that comes with power, son, and if you abuse it, the fires of hell await you. "; Pg. 203: "Scarlet Avenger " (the name taken by a character in this novel; mentioned here and elsewhere, not in DB)

comics

Washington: Seattle

1993

Busby, F. M. The Singularity Project. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 31.

"on the comics page I was pleased to see Hod Neill's Thom Tumb taking a crack at 'Cretin-Hogsbreath.' Not exactly Walt Kelly or Gary Trudeau, still Neill got some good licks in. This time Thom was telling Berlinda, his German girlfriend, 'You got to admire them legislooters; they never gives up their principals.' "

comics

Washington: Seattle

1993

Busby, F. M. The Singularity Project. New York: Tor (1993); pg. 59.

"I had no answer. I reached for my tall lady and hugged her. Then we got to kissing, to the point that I wished I had a faster recovery time. But she was worn out herself; time for sleepy-bye. So I didn't really have to feel bad about not being Superman. "

"The limo bounced over a too-deep rain gutter and into the parking lot of Kirby & Ditko's RV World. " [This business has been named by the author in honor of two prominent Marvel comic book artists: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.]

comics

world

1943

Rand, Ayn. Fountainhead. New York: Penguin (1993; c. 1943); pg. 342.

"...the photograph of a man's face in the moment of exaltation, and he had it printed in the Banner, over the caption: 'Are you happy, Mr. Superman?' " [Also, pg. 492.]

Sturgeon, Theodore. "The Other Celia " in Modern Classics of Science Fiction. (Gardner Dozois, ed.) New York: St. Martin's Press (1991; story c. 1957); pg. 73.

"He spread his overcoat carefully over the hole in the closet so no stray light from his room would appear in the little slot in the ceiling, closed the door, read a comic book for a while, and went to bed. "

"Burroughs wrote decorously of... Dejah Thoris, the princess of a kingdom with the improbable name of Helium. I have little doubt that the precedent of a kingdom called Helium led directly to the planet called Krypton home of the comic-book hero Superman. "

Pg. 95: "But the future is a different matter. As the bear swore in Pogo after having endured a pot shoved on her head, being turned upside down while still in the pot, a discussion about her edibility, the lawnmowering of her behind, and a fistful of ground pepper in the snoot, she then swore a mighty oath on the ashes of her mothers (i.e. her forebears) grimly but quietly while the apples from the shaken apple tree above her dropped bang thud on her head:

"As early as April 21, while Simon an Mary Lou listened to Clark Kent and His Supermen and George Dorn... Frodo Baggins and His Ring, the Mouse That Roars...Strangers in a Strange Land... the Incredible Hulk... the Time Machine... "

"Dori did a 'comic book' once, called Lonely Nights... Dori also did a lot of work for WEIRDO magazine, which emanated from the artistic circles of R. Crumb, he of 'Keep on 'Truckin' ' and 'Fritz the Cat' fame.

R. Crumb once said: 'Comics are words and pictures. You can do anything with words and pictures!' " [More, not in DB. Also pg. 660.]

Pg. 62: Superman; Pg. 83: comic books; Pg. 101: "...looser-fitting Superman suit... "; Pg. 119: "Heinlein's hero in Stranger is Valentine Michael Smith, an average American boy and a foundling, who, having been raised by Martians, has Superman-like psychic powers. He can kill his enemies by wishing them out of existence. Girls find him irresistible, and, unlike the Clark Kent/Superman of that era, he found girls irresistible. "; Pg. 192: "...to alien invaders was a story in an old E.C. comic book. " [more]

comics

world

2002

Bear, Greg. Vitalis. New York: Ballantine (2002); pg. 25.

"'I'm the butler. Betty is really Supergirl...' "

comics

world

2009

England, Terry. Rewind. New York: Avon Books (1997); pg. 267.

"'...What did you tell them about our culture?'

'Everything they asked about... the whole spectrum of human life on Earth... The great books, writings on religion and philosophy, both Eastern and Western, technological development--they got it all. And our popular culture, comics, movies, television, books, theater...' "

"Why couldn't he just go ahead and commit to this woman. He did love her. Why couldn't he just ignore what he'd seen? Millions of people were doing just that, after all--for most of the world, the idea of a fixed future was ridiculous. They'd seen it a hundred times in TV shows and movies: Jimmy Stewart realizes that it's a wonderful life after watching the world unfold without him. Superman, incensed at the death of Lois Lane, flies around the Earth so quickly that it spins backwards, letting him return to a time before her demise, saving her. "

"He trailed after her through the Egyptian section, stood patiently while she stared at the frescoes or whatever they were called: whole walls cartooned with the ancient equivalents of X-Men, cartouches instead of semaphores narrating the story... "

[In introduction to this collection, Harrison states: "My years of slavery as a comic-book artist are reflected in 'Portrait of the Artist.' The story, pages 175-186, focuses on comic book art, and the illustration on page 176 is a comic book page-style illustration.] Pg. 175: "He had lettered it himself with a number 7 brush. Funereal India ink on harsh yellow paper, big letters, big words. "; Pg. 177: "Page three of a piece of crap called 'Prairie Love.' For the July issue of Real Rangeland Romances. Love books with their heavy copy were always a snap... The Mark VIII Robot Comic Artist would do all the rest.. " [Story focuses on a robot comic book artist.]

comics

world

2025

Cool, Tom. Infectress. New York: Baen (1997); pg. 306.

"'Why, it's the Batman!' another joked.

A flat black aircraft, all angular wings, appeared suddenly in the break... "

Pg. 308: "...and a jaunty fedora with a 'Press' card stuck in the brim. Except for his anachronistic wrist recorder, he was the archetype of the questing reporter: Clark Kent, Woodward and Bernstein, and, of course, Lincoln Steffens. "; Pg. 419: The Flash

"'...the country was founded by a flock of fuzzy-minded secular humanists, Anthony. That's why we can't have God in our schools anymore. That's why they're killing a million unborn babies a day. That's why the Communists are growin' stronger while we're talking arms reduction...' "

Pg. 192: "'I am afraid of this man, Sutton. I was once a Communist; you are black. Will they put us on a cross and burn us?' "; Pg. 193: "'I think your military wishes to kill me,' Yuri said. 'I think that there is no place now that I can run. I think all this time you have hated me because I was once a Communist.' "

"May 1944The Nazi column moves slowly through the mountain pass toward an ambush prepared by Albanian partisans. After the battle, a ton of gold disappears.

April 1985Enver Hoxha, the man who kept Albania virtually isolated from the rest of the world for almost forty years, lies in state in Tirana. Russian and Chinese leaders begin to make very special plans. "

[Many Communist refs. throughout first section of the novel, pages 1-48, and some after that in the 1985 time period.]

Communist

Albania

1944

Ing, Dean. Blood of Eagles. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 4.

Pg. 4: "Most had thrown in with Tito's communists, but republicans developed their own ragtag BK army, the Balli Kombetar, National Front. "; Pg. 6: "Hamid's partisans had no mines, but that meant little. General Hoxha's Albanian communists, damn their eyes, might have done it without warning Hamid's republican partisans. The communist had Soviet munitions and men to spare, especially Shehu's gang, the Seventh Shock Brigade. These days, Mehmet Shehu was as likely to open fire on decent Catholic BK partisans as on the Nazis. Clearly, the communists felt the war was sufficiently won to begin clearing out republicans... "; Pg. 17: "The names of two Albanian communist organizations, at the start of this war, had been Work, Puna, and Youth, Rintje. Elbas Hamid knew a primitive passport when he saw one: he held a free passage for himself through communist lines. " [Much more, not in DB.]

Communist

Albania

1944

Ing, Dean. Blood of Eagles. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 30.

"Communists were not religious men given to burials--but then, Hamid himself had left several good Catholics lying dead and unburied this day... At least he had denied it to Nazi and communist alike, unless he was interrogated and broke under torture. He resolved to put the hoard [of gold] out of his mind until some future day when Albania was once again a God-fearing republic, free of domination by Serbs and Russians. "

"He could talk an Albanian Stalinist into standing on his head and singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner'--at least, as long as he and his pheromones were in the room. Afterward, when our Albanian Stalinist returned to his senses, he'd promptly denounce himself and have himself shot. "

Communist

Albania

1985

Ing, Dean. Blood of Eagles. New York: Tor (1987); pg. 157.

"'The man who telephoned me that morning in Boston, to tell me where my wife had been hidden, was a Serb--I know the accent well. I suppose they were trying to force me to return as a favor to the damned Albanian communists...' " [More, pg. 157-159, etc.]

"'Daddy... believed that the Untied States... was the city of God on Earth. He volunteered to fly in Korea because he figured that Red Chinese would swamp that peninsula and take Japan and all of Indochina if we didn't stop them there...' " [Other refs. not in DB.]

"Mrs. Greyson, needless to say, had been a liberal. In the McCarthy days there wasn't that much difference in the public's view between communism and homosexuality, so Fremont had little difficulty winning, once his smear campaign began. "

"Tessa's father, by the way, is a former chapter Leader of the John Birch Society. She understand all this; as a kid she was a Commie Cruncher and watched... "

Communist

California

1974

Dick, Philip K. Radio Free Albemuth. New York: Arbor House (1985)

[Book jacket] "Radio Free Albemuth, set in an alternative contemporary U.S.A., an environment of anti-Communist political repression, poses the problem of how to treat a friend whose life is being directed by a being from outer space. " [Many refs., not in DB.]

"The others attended the University in perpetuity. Berkeley had an entire population of professional students who never graduated and who had no other goals in life... As a child Nicholas had gone to a progressive Communist-front nursery school. His mother, who had many friends in the Communist Party in Berkeley in the thirties, sent him there. Later he became a Quaker... "

"Nobody in Berkeley, including the Communist Party members living and working there, had ever hard of Aramchek. It mystified them. What was Aramchek? Senator Fremont claimed in his speech that a Communist Party member, an agent of the Politburo, had under pressure given him a document in which the CP-USA discussed the nature of Aramchek, and that from this document it was evident that the CP-USA, the Communist Party of America, was itself merely a front, one of many, cannon fodder as it were, to mask the real enemy, the real agency of treason, Aramchek. " [More.]

"To me, the Fear had come late. HUAC first went after Hollywood in '47, with the Hollywood Ten. Supposedly the committee was investigating Communist infiltration of the film industry--a ridiculous notion on the face of it, since no Communists were going to get any propaganda in the pictures without the express knowledge of people like Mr. Mayer and the Brothers Warner. The Ten were all current or former Communists, and they and their lawyers agreed on a defense based on the First Amendment of free speech and association. " [More about this.]

"...he saw the war itself as a stupendous snow-job, men killed for fat bankers to float loans, ships built that went right to the bottom, bonds that could not re redeemed. Communism taking over, Red Cross blood that had syphilis germs in it. Negros and white troops living together, nurses that were whores, generals that screwed their orderlies... "

"Grimmelman returned the snapshot. 'No, I never saw him. And anyhow your organization is infiltrated by Communists; it's no use talking to you, it goes straight to MVD hatchet men in the Labor School and around the PW.'

...Actually, there was no Kendelman. He had registered under that name, and he used it now and then in covert political work, undercover work such as spying on Fascist student groups, Stalinist fronts, and for taking out library books he did not mean to return. "

"'Damn,' Jim said softly. 'They're still using money. We're going to need some.'

'Money?' Chekov said. 'We should have landed in Russia. There, we would not want money.'

A couple of the twentieth-century people standing around them reacted to Chekov's comment with irritation. Jim heard somebody mutter, 'Pinko commie exchange student.' He recalled that the stalled nuclear arms talks referred to in the newspaper were arms talks between North Americans and Russians.

'In Russia,' Chekov said, 'to each according to their need, from each according to their ability.' He smiled at the glowering citizen of twentieth-century North America. "

"And after the collapse of the Russian state it was in the East that Russian culture continued to live. Its mysticism influenced India. Its social ideal influenced China. Not indeed that China took over the theory, still less the practice, of communism; but she learnt to entrust herself increasingly to a vigorous, devoted and despotic party, and to feel in terms of the social whole rather than individualistically. "

"But he made no advances; he used the time to talk of the paradise China would become when Mao Tse-Tung and the Communists freed it from the scaly devils, the eastern devils from Japan, the foreign devils, and its native oppressors. If a quarter of what he said was true, no one would recognize the country after a generation of new rule. " [Many other refs., not in DB.]

"The thing he called doctrine told him what he needed, almost as if it let him toss the coins for the I-Ching inside his own head. That made it a valuable tool. But he also sometimes seemed unable to think outside the framework his doctrine gave him, as if it were not the tool but master. The Communists in the scaly devils' prison camp had acted the same way. She'd heard Christian missionaries gabble about a Truth they claimed to have. The Communists thought they owned truth, too. It sometimes made them uncomfortable allies, even if she could never have struck the little devils such a blow without them. "

"...in '48... we were sent into China to save a billion-odd people for democracy. It was not apparent at the time, but our side had already lost. On paper, things seemed retrievable--the generalissimo's Kuomintang still held all the major cities, their armies were well equipped, compared to Mao and his forces, and it was well known that the generalissimo was a genius. If he weren't, why had Mr. Luce made him Time's Man of the Year twice?

On the other hand, the Communists were marching south at a steady rate of twenty-three point five miles per day, rain or shine, summer or winter, redistributing land as they went. Nothing could stop them--certainly not the generalissimo. " [More.]

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